I just published a column in Ha'aretz about how Jews have given mainstream right-wing anti-Semitism a free pass, and how it needs to stop. While I submitted it to them under the title "Who's Afraid of Right-Wing Anti-Semitism", they published it as "Who’ll Have the Guts to Stand Up to Trump’s Powerful anti-Semitic Predators?" But you can get a fair sense of the tenor of the piece by its original working title: "The Republican Jewish Coalition is chickenshit."
And that was before they (and the even-more risible ZOA) decided to defend Steve Bannon.
Ha'aretz, alas, has a paywall (and a notoriously cantankerous website). But if you're having trouble accessing the article, I've found that going through google and selecting the cached version usually works.
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8 comments:
imho as a Hillary voter who thinks that Trump will be a disaster for the US and the world (i.e. I'm motivated to think the worst of Trump and everyone associated with him) I think this Bannon = antisemite thing is overblown, not supported sufficiently by the evidence, missing nuance in terms of distinguishing between anti-leftism and anti-Judaism, and overreach of the sort that has characterized much of the distrust the media has earned with at least half our population. Bannon seems to be a terrible person and unfit for the position - much like his boss. Also there does not appear to be sufficient evidence to bring him up on charges of Judenhass. It matters.
That's a well-written, well thought out piece, David. (And thanks for linking to my post.) It seems to me, though, that adequately to take on right wing antisemitism and threats like the one Huckabee made, Jews will have to be willing to say, bluntly, without equivocation, that support of Israel is not the be all and end all of what it means to support and accept Jews. And that's going to be hard. I know this is a much more complicated conversation than this brief comment suggests, and I am probably not as well-read as you are in where that conversation would have to go, but that's all I have time for now. I am off to bed. Again, it's a good piece. I'm glad it's out there.
So, something to the effect of "And so we've become accustomed to letting mainstream right-wing anti-Semitism slide, satisfied with the rote recitation 'I am a great supporter of Israel' (surely, the right-wing variant on the leftist’s 'I have always opposed all forms of bigotry…')."
Yes?
Yes, but I also think it means being willing to lose that support, if it comes to that, even if the loss has real, material consequences.
Uh, no I don't think it is necessary or morally cogent to "lose" support for Israel in order to combat bigotry.
I think what Richard is saying is that it is plausible that some of these right-wing "allies" will drop their support of Israel if they are called out by Jews on their anti-Semitism/bigotry elsewhere (I remember going through this years ago with Turkey, where many Jews played soft on Armenian Genocide/Kurdish issues because Turkey very explicitly threatened to blow up its friendly relationship with Israel over it). And so what he's asking is whether we're willing to sacrifice these groups' support in order to continue calling them out on other forms of bigotry.
I say yes, but as we both know it's a fraught proposition (although the fact that the right is putting us in that position to my mind shows they were never true allies in the first place).
I've researched this pretty extensively, and have found no evidence that Bannon is an anti-Semite. What evidence do you have that you call him one?
David didn't reply to my comment so he'll probably skip yours too but I recommend everyone read this:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world
Whatever Bannon is - and he seems v unsavory and disturbing to me - the language he uses it not the lexicon of the antisemite. Antisemites do not place Judaism as one of the animating forces behind Western enlightenment and Capitalism (unless it's left-wing antisemitism which this is not). Judeo-Christian is not a term antisemites use (unless they're Norwegian NSBM singers). If anything he is possibly a philosemite (and we can argue about whether that's the flipside of an antisemite) but there's too much disingenuity and unwillingness to parse nuance to hash this out. Ultimately people are really angry and afraid of Trump and that is what is driving the resistance to Bannon more than any actual substantiated or real belief that he's an antisemite. They understandably want to deal damage to the Trump machine and Bannon is a central cog in it. The problem is that misstating the issues at hand costs credibility that the left cannot afford to spend.
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